Excitement for fall and winter movie releases is building, and a lot of this week’s news seems to be movie-based. First, David from The Warden’s Walk is hosting a read-through of The Hobbit, beginning in late September and ending just before the movie comes out. Whether you’re a fan of the book or have never read it, and whether or not you plan to see the movie, this sounds like a great event to check out.
The young Potter actors have made headlines for a lot of reasons, but now Emma Watson’s got a scandalous one through no fault of her own: she’s apparently this year’s most dangerous celebrity to search for online. Cyber criminals use her name to attract potential victims; according to USA Today (link above), searching for her name gives you a one-in-eight chance of landing on a malicious site. It’s a strangely unfitting fate for someone so hardworking and serious as she appears to be. Her new film, Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, releases September 21.
In other movie news, the film adaptation of Veronica Roth’s dystopian YA novel, Divergent, has been set for release March 21, 2014. Madeleine L’Engle’s goddaughter has adapted and filmed one of L’Engle’s early novels and is now searching for distribution. And I’m not sure this counts as a movie, exactly, but Neil Patrick Harris plans to return for the sequel to Joss Whedon’s internet musical Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.
Also, thanks perhaps in part to the success of HBO’s epic fantasy Game of Thrones, based of course on the George R.R. Martin novel of the same title, Terry Brooks’ Shannara series has been picked up by Sonar Entertainment and Farah Films for TV adaptation.
In various news:
Want a great house with a good strong connection to both J.R.R. Tolkien and Roald Dahl? The children of the late publisher Rayner Unwin, who published both Tolkien and Dahl, are selling the family home.
Roald Dahl’s books are also coming to ereader, for those who admire the author but may not be able to afford nice houses in England.
And in top ten lists, io9 picks the twelve greatest war stories in science fiction as well as “Ten Things You Probably Didn’t Know about Star Trek, The Original Series,” litreactor.com has the top ten best closing lines of novels–and mentions Harry Potter but not James Joyce, Shortlist.com has the top ten scariest Stephen King scenes, and Fantasy Matters has chosen to list “The Top Ten Vampires That Aren’t Really Vampires,” with an utterly predictable number one.
Lastly, “Science Confirms the Obvious: Reading Literature is Good for Your Brain.” The title says it all.
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“Camilla” may be my favorite book by Madeleine L’Engle. The first time I read this book I was pretty young and didn’t completely understand it….but I was so excited that Camilla’s friend shared my name. I’ve again read it as a young adult and again in middle age. When I read this book, I am Camilla. Amazing! I was thrilled to read about the movie, then I started to worry about how the story would be ruined. I think the excitement is going to ultimately win out! Thanks for the post!
I really enjoyed that link regarding the top Sci-Fi war stories.
I seem to have gravitated to many of these stories over the years but there are some on the list that I either haven’t read yet or hadn’t even heard of.
Anyone read Armor?
Luisa, I’m thoroughly excited about the movie. I haven’t read Camilla, but I intend to soon. Definitely before the movie comes around.
Glad to hear good things about the book!
Korg, as a longtime Ender’s Game fan, I liked that link too. I’ve never read Armor, but it sounds like an intriguing concept.
I mentored Corrie Moore (the writer/director of Camilla through the Act One screenwriting program back in 2001, and she was working hard to get this movie to the screen even then. Now she has the second mountain to climb: finding distribution — so hard these days. I hope we can all get to see her movie sometime soon…
Wow, Janet. I’m hopeful she’ll get distribution, too–I’d love to see that movie.